Lieutenant Colonel Yurii Aleksandrov was assigned to handle the disillusioned Stashinsky. Aleksandrov was senior to Sarkisov and had much more power than his predecessor, and he tried to be as honest with Stashinsky as could be expected under the circumstances. He told Stashinsky that he “had learned of strained relations and misunderstandings that had arisen, and that he had been authorized to clear up those misunderstandings in order to ensure good cooperation in future.” He was also direct in letting Stashinsky know that establishing good relations was in his interest as well. “You know as well as I do,” he told Stashinsky, “that we are now permanently associated ‘like needle and thread,’ as the Russian proverb has it.”
Stashinsky welcomed the change of case officer. He told Aleksandrov that he was unhappy about the eavesdropping, the opening of personal correspondence, and the obvious distrust toward him—this after all that he had done for the KGB. Aleksandrov agreed with him and promised to help. He also wanted Stashinsky to write to Inge, encouraging her to come back to Moscow as soon as possible. Aleksandrov even offered to supply her with genuine new documents for her return to the Soviet Union. As with Stashinsky, the KGB saw no reason to go on concealing Inge’s identity. Stashinsky liked his new handler but suspected that the KGB was being so good to him for a reason: they wanted Inge back as soon as possible. He wrote to his wife and, instead of encouraging her to return, advised her to go the seamstress.3
Inge began to put their plan into action. She soon wrote to her husband:
My dear Bogdan, as we agreed, I am getting ready for your arrival. I must do a great deal myself. Yesterday I was at the seamstress’s. Everything is in order. She is making everything as planned. You should see how bright these little baby shirts are. I just don’t know which color I should choose. Light blue, I think. But I sense that you have no need of these foolish ideas of women. Wait for our meeting. All in all, I love you. Oh yes, Aunt Klara wanted me to tell you that the thing you asked about is definitely working out. Actually, when I visit my relatives, I am always in such a good mood that I have no fear at all about our future.
The latter reference was to Frau Schade, the friend of Inge’s father who was supposed to become a go-between for Inge in her dealings with the CIA. It seemed that she had agreed to perform that role.4
But then Inge received a sudden call from Moscow. Stashinsky had been stressed for days after sending his wife to contact the CIA. What if the KGB had her followed and found out about the contact? How would the CIA respond to her overture? If CIA officers decided to meet with him in Moscow, would they not also be followed by the KGB? There were more questions than answers. After agonizing over the right course of action and going back and forth on his original decision, Stashinsky eventually decided to call off the whole enterprise. He panicked. In violation of the security protocol he had devised for communicating with his wife, he called her on an open line from Moscow and told her not to go to the seamstress. They aborted the plan.
The next news Stashinsky received from Berlin was of a much happier nature. On March 31, 1961, Inge gave birth to their son, Peter. That was the happiest day of Inge’s life. Stashinsky learned of the birth the same day via telegram. Perhaps because of the cumulative stress that Inge had experienced in Moscow, the birth was a month premature, and Stashinsky decided to take advantage of that circumstance to request permission to see his wife and newborn son in Berlin. He turned to his new case officer, Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandrov, for help, but the request was denied. Inge’s telegram said that both she and the child were well, and besides, the KGB wanted them back in Moscow, not Stashinsky traveling to Berlin.
As spring gave way to summer, Stashinsky’s letters to Inge became more and more disconsolate. Inge realized that she had no choice but to go back to Moscow. There was no chance that her husband’s handlers would allow him to join her in Berlin. “My minders from Karlshorst, with whom I had to maintain constant contact,” recalled Inge later, “were very glad to hear of my decision and notified Moscow of it the very same day.” In early August she began preparing to fly back to Moscow. Whatever plans she and Stashinsky had made for life in the West would have to be postponed, if not completely abandoned. They should stay together as a family. So Moscow was the only option.5
29
TELEPHONE CALL
On the evening of Tuesday, August 8, 1961, Stashinsky received an unexpected visit from Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Kravchenko, an assistant to the head of the KGB émigré department and one of the two men with whom he had celebrated his award back in November 1959. Kravchenko dropped by Stashinsky’s apartment to tell him that he should call his wife in Berlin. He did not give a reason, but Stashinsky assumed it was to discuss the details of Inge’s forthcoming return to Moscow.
Private telephones were a luxury in Moscow in 1961. When calling someone in another city, the usual procedure was to send a telegram asking the person to go to a post office or telephone station at a certain time and await the call. Kravchenko asked Stashinsky to invite Inge for a telephone conversation at 7:00 p.m. Central European time, which was 10:00 p.m. Moscow time. Stashinsky agreed. At the time indicated by Kravchenko, the two were on the phone and Stashinsky’s world had turned upside down.1
Stashinsky could not believe his ears. Their son, Peter—the healthy boy born four months earlier—was dead. He had fallen ill and developed a high fever by the time they took him to a hospital. Inge was disconsolate and wanted him to come to Berlin. She was demanding that from her contacts at Karlshorst as well. All Stashinsky could tell her was that he would talk to his bosses. It was a terrible night for him. He had never seen his son, and now the baby might be buried without him. He couldn’t contact his case officer, Lieutenant Colonel Yurii Aleksandrov, until the next morning. But Aleksandrov was already aware of Peter’s death. The KGB had wanted Stashinsky to hear the news firsthand from his wife, Aleksandrov explained to Stashinsky.
Aleksandrov sounded genuinely compassionate on the phone. He asked Stashinsky whether there was anything he could do to help him. “I can do nothing other than go to Berlin and help my wife,” responded Stashinsky. During the sleepless night following Inge’s call, Stashinsky had devised a strategy that might bring him to Berlin after all, capitalizing on Inge’s precarious condition after the loss of her child. He told Aleksandrov that “in her present state of mind she might do something in despair that would be harmful to the KGB,” such as turning to the German authorities and demanding his arrival in Berlin. That could blow his cover. Aleksandrov responded hotly that Inge herself was responsible for Peter’s death—things would have turned out differently if she had not delayed her return to Moscow. But he promised to talk to the higher-ups.2
When Stashinsky called Aleksandrov a few hours later, the case officer had good news for him—permission to travel to Berlin had finally been granted. The KGB did not want Inge causing scandals in a city that was only partly under their control. The decision was apparently made at the highest level, possibly by Aleksandr Shelepin himself. (Years later, his successor at the helm of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny, would blame Shelepin for going soft on Stashinsky and letting him leave the country.) Stashinsky could not wait to pass on the good news to Inge, with whom he spoke by phone later that day—they would see each other either tomorrow or the day after, he told his anxious wife.
That evening, Aleksandrov told Stashinsky that everything was ready for his departure. He would go to Germany on a military plane that was flying there the next morning, and would need to be ready by 5:00 a.m. Aleksandrov would collect him near his apartment building. He asked Stashinsky to turn in all his KGB-issued documents and passes before leaving for Germany, keeping his travel document only. It was issued, as always, in the name of Aleksandr Krylov. Stashinsky had only one night to collect his thoughts and pack his belongings for the trip he had dreamt of for so long, and which was now taking place under such tragic circumstances. Stashinsky was shocked and overwhelmed by the death of the son he had ne
ver met, and concerned about Inge trying to cope with the tragedy on her own. But he was not going to lose the opportunity presented by this unexpected trip. Stashinsky would not bring Inge back to Moscow—they would escape to the West.
Stashinsky had always wanted to use his old documents, issued in the name of Josef Lehmann, for that purpose. Now, in direct violation of Aleksandrov’s instructions, he took the Lehmann identity card with him, which was good until April 1970, and a driver’s license in the same name. He also pocketed his Soviet passport and a Foreign Languages Institute student identity card, both issued in his real name. To these, he added the letter of reference that the KGB had provided for his enrollment at the institute. The letter mentioned the Order of the Red Banner—proof of the importance of the tasks he had carried out for the KGB. Stashinsky was ready not just to go to the West and request asylum, but to turn himself in and disclose his real name and the work he had done for the KGB.
Shortly before 5:00 a.m. on August 10, Stashinsky was waiting near his apartment building to be picked up by Aleksandrov. Before leaving, he put his household effects in order and destroyed the list of code phrases that he and Inge had used in their correspondence. The only incriminating evidence remaining was what he carried on him—the identification papers and documents he was taking to Berlin against the orders of his case officer. If they were discovered, the KGB would have no doubt about his real intentions. He was risking his life.
Aleksandrov showed up on time, all dressed up—he was clearly happy to get out of Moscow for a trip to Berlin. He had a lot of friends there. Until recently he had served at Karlshorst, where he was widely known and respected not only among fellow KGB officers but also among Soviet diplomats. The head of the KGB apparatus, General Aleksandr Korotkov, had attended informal gatherings at his apartment. Besides, the trip to Berlin came with a per diem in foreign currency, and the opportunity to bring back highly valued gifts and merchandise that could not be found in the Soviet capital. When Stashinsky learned that Aleksandrov would accompany him on the trip to Berlin, his heart sank. His chances of escape had just diminished, while the risk of being caught had increased dramatically. He turned over to Aleksandrov the envelope with his identification papers and passes. Aleksandrov did not ask about the missing Lehmann and Stashinsky documents.
They drove to the military airport on the outskirts of Moscow and spent a few hours waiting for their flight. It was there that Aleksandrov dropped another bombshell on Stashinsky. He told him that the KGB had considered two possible scenarios to explain Peter’s death. The first was the involvement of American or West German intelligence services, which might have killed the baby to lure Stashinsky to Berlin and seize him there. The second possibility, said Aleksandrov, was that Inge was somehow involved in the death of their son, possibly in an attempt to bring Stashinsky to Berlin after all her other attempts had failed.
Stashinsky was appalled. “After all that I had experienced with the KGB, this conversation was the last straw,” he remembered later. “Those people really thought that a mother was capable of murdering her child in order to gratify her wishes.” Stashinsky exploded and told Aleksandrov with indignation: “You can’t be saying that my wife murdered her child!” The KGB officer tried to calm him down. They were professional intelligence officers, which meant being vigilant and taking every possibility into account. They would soon learn what had really happened. For now, they had little information to go on, and they had to be cautious in order to prevent anything untoward. “He told me,” recalled Stashinsky, “that, given both possibilities, it was necessary that I be protected at all times, and that he had ordered a car with KGB personnel for that purpose.” Either scenario conveniently gave the KGB sufficient excuse to keep Stashinsky under constant watch during his stay in Berlin. His chances of escape were diminishing by the hour.
Stashinsky had a lot to think about on the flight from Moscow to Spremberg, ninety miles southeast of Berlin. There, as expected, he and Aleksandrov were met by KGB officers. One of them, a gray-haired man whose name Stashinsky never learned, was responsible for liaison with Inge. He was unhappy to learn that Stashinsky had already called Inge from Moscow and let her know of his impending arrival—that, he told Stashinsky, was premature. Stashinsky was required to stay at Karlshorst for the duration of his visit, and, if he wanted to spend his nights with Inge, she would have to come there as well. The gray-haired man spoke about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Berlin. The city had become a “seething den of vice,” he told Stashinsky. Besides, some suspicious people had been making inquiries about him, corroborating General Baryshnikov’s story about the Western intelligence services allegedly being on Stashinsky’s trail. And the murky circumstances of Peter’s death only complicated the situation. For his own safety, Stashinsky could not stay in the village of Dallgow with his wife.
Stashinsky reconciled himself to the circumstances but would not wait until the KGB declared the situation safe enough for him to see Inge. He wanted to call and see her right away. Was that not the reason they had let him come to Berlin? The man with the gray hair had to agree. On the night of August 10, they got into a car and drove to Dallgow.3
30
BERLIN
On Thursday, August 10, 1961, the day Bogdan Stashinsky flew from Moscow to Spremberg, Muscovites were eager to get their hands on the morning newspapers. The print media reported on the festive reception that had been given to Major Gherman Titov, the Soviet cosmonaut, the previous day. Political leaders and ordinary citizens had gathered on Red Square to welcome him home. Titov had become the second Soviet cosmonaut to orbit the earth in a space capsule. The first to do so, four months earlier, had been Major Yurii Gagarin, who had spent less than two hours in outer space on April 12. Titov was in orbit for twenty-five hours on August 6 and 7, circling the earth seventeen times—a new record that made the Soviets proud.
Nikita Khrushchev was on Red Square to greet Titov and congratulate him. The Soviets were ahead of the Americans, who would not put a man into orbit until February 1962. Khrushchev proudly emphasized the peaceful nature of the Soviet space program, telling the jubilant crowd that “the spaceship Vostok 2 had no atomic bombs or any other death-dealing weapons on board. Like other Soviet artificial earth satellites and spaceships, it was equipped with scientific instruments for peaceful use.” At the same time, however, Titov’s report, published in the Communist Party mouthpiece Pravda, ended with words that, if read carefully, might send a chill through the capitals of the West: “I am prepared to carry out any assignment of the party and the state.” It was up to the Soviet leaders to decide whether the next assignment would involve “instruments for peaceful use” or nuclear bombs.1
It was Khrushchev’s second major speech in less than three days. On August 7 he had given a much longer and more bellicose speech as a response to an address given two weeks earlier by John F. Kennedy, who was then completing his sixth month as president. Kennedy’s speech focused on the growing security crisis in and around Berlin. He told his American audience that he recognized the legitimacy of Soviet security concerns in Central Europe and was open to talks on Berlin, but he rejected the language of ultimatums, which Khrushchev was continuing to use in his efforts to force Western powers to abandon West Berlin.
Kennedy was taking a firm stance, clearly indicating that he would not be pushed around. In his July 25 speech, Kennedy had declared that he would ask the US Congress for more than $3 billion in additional defense spending and was adding eight more divisions to the US armed forces. “We seek peace, but we shall not surrender,” declared the president. He was eager to counter the widespread impression in his own country that he was weak and indecisive; earlier that year, when he refused to provide air support for the Cuban exiles’ invasion of Fidel Castro’s “island of freedom,” the venture had ended in a fiasco.
Khrushchev was enraged by Kennedy’s speech. In his own televised response, he compared Berlin to Sarajevo in 1914, suggesting that
the growing Berlin crisis could lead to a new world war. He also used imagery and examples from World War II, suggesting that Soviet divisions could be moved to the western frontiers of the Eastern bloc countries to counter the American threat. He referenced a recent meeting of the political leaders of the Warsaw Pact, the Eastern bloc’s military organization, who had unanimously voiced support for the Soviet’s demands that the Western military leave West Berlin and allow it to be incorporated into a “free city” in East Germany. What he did not mention was that the meeting, which had ended in Moscow a few days earlier, had also given the go-ahead for the construction of a wall that would cut Berlin in two and turn it into a permanently divided city.
While Khrushchev was delivering his August 7 speech, Walter Ulbricht, the communist leader of East Germany, was busy finalizing his plans to divide Berlin with barbed wire and, eventually, concrete blocks. He had admitted to Khrushchev long before that he saw no other way to stop the flight of his citizens to the West. Khrushchev agreed. He told the Eastern bloc leaders gathered in Moscow in early August that the continued existence of the German Democratic Republic was at stake, and, by extension, the existence of their own regimes as well. The leaders had reluctantly given their support to Ulbricht’s initiative. Their main concern was possible Western retaliation in the form of economic sanctions or even military action. Khrushchev was more optimistic in that regard. If he had correctly read the messages sent to him by President Kennedy, the Americans would not intervene. Either way, he was prepared to take the risk. They agreed on a date for the closing of the border—the night of Saturday, August 12.2
The preparations to close the border were made with the uttermost secrecy. Nothing that Bogdan Stashinsky saw on the streets of Berlin on the night of August 10 indicated that a major operation to seal off East Berlin from the western part of the city was only two days away. The KGB car carrying Stashinsky left East Berlin and headed for the village of Dallgow, where Inge was staying with her family. So much had happened since Stashinsky had bid her farewell seven months ago, and there was so much for them to talk about. But with the KGB men around, they had very little privacy. By 11:00 p.m., the minders had driven the couple to Karlshorst, where they were placed in a KGB-run safe house. They could not talk there, either. Like their KGB flat in Moscow, it was certainly bugged. Stashinsky and Inge would not take any more risks. The next morning, Stashinsky discovered that they had been under observation throughout the night. From his window he saw a car with a diplomatic license plate parked near the house in which they were staying, which soon swapped places with a Soviet-made Volga sedan. After that, a third car showed up. Its occupants were Lieutenant Colonel Yurii Aleksandrov and the gray-haired man from the day before.
The Man with the Poison Gun Page 19
